The Weekend Note.

The designer I can’t stop thinking about this week.

If you don’t already follow Abigail Ahern you need to stop what you’re doing and go and find her right now.

I’ve admired her work for years but this week I found myself going down a very enjoyable rabbit hole looking at how she uses her outside space. What she does with an outdoor area is nothing short of extraordinary. She creates atmosphere in a way that most interior designers only manage indoors. The layering, the lighting, the sense that every corner has been thought about and then thought about again.

Her outside space at her home in London feels like a retreat from the world rather than just a garden. It feels private and considered and genuinely tranquil in a way that makes you want to sit down, stay there and not come back inside.

It’s the kind of design that reminds you why you fell in love with interiors in the first place.

In a time when the whole country goes quiet, I found tranquility in the most unexpected place.

The football World Cup is in full swing and apparently the entire population has collectively agreed to stay indoors and watch it. I live on a main road and the traffic noise is just part of life here. But this week something happened that I haven’t experienced in years.

Silence.

Or as close to silence as a main road ever gets.

While everyone else was glued to a screen I was out in the veg patch, pottering about, doing absolutely nothing of any great importance and loving every single second of it. No traffic. No noise. Just the garden, the birds and that particular kind of calm that you only really notice when you weren’t expecting it.

It made me think about how we’re always chasing the perfect conditions for a moment like this. The holiday, the weekend away, the spa day. And sometimes it just turns up on a Tuesday evening because everyone’s watching the football.

I’ll take it.

The recipe I’ve made on repeat this week.

This one is so simple it barely counts as a recipe. But I’ve made it every evening this week during the warm weather we’ve had and the whole family have loved it! - (Even my non-salad eating boys!)

Gem lettuce cut into strips. Three cloves of garlic grated finely. A really good drizzle of olive oil. Fresh lemon juice squeezed over the top and some sprinkled grated parmisan.

That’s it. Honestly that’s it.

It works as a side dish alongside pretty much anything and the garlic and lemon together do something really lovely to the lettuce that makes it feel a lot more elevated than the four ingredients suggest. Try it this weekend. You won’t regret it.

That’s it from me this week. I hope your weekend has a quiet moment in it somewhere, even if you have to wait for a football match to find it.

Angela x